Page 83 of Deathmarch

The rush was like plunging from the high point of a roller coaster: sheer exhilaration, breathlessness, half a heart attack.

She made a sound. She hadn’t meant it to be encouraging, but it so obviously was, he kissed her deeper.

Nobody kissed like Harper. God, she’d almost forgotten how he would begin slow and soft and seduce her mouth little by little until she was hopelessly lost, until she was ruthlessly conquered.

Definitely a roller-coaster ride. Except this roller coaster didn’t come to a gentle stop at the end. It slammed her into the solid brick wall built from the memories of their past.

Allie pulled away, breathing hard, begging. “Harper, I can’t.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Since Harper had decided not to waste any more time on trying to stop himself from thinking about Allie, he let his brain dwell on their kiss. It would have been impossible to keep her from his mind anyway. Her car smelled like her: boot leather and apple pie. She was a complex woman.

As he drove her Chevy over from the station to Billy Picket’s garage postlunch, he glanced at the little sticker in the upper left corner of the windshield. Her next oil change had been due at 86,125 miles. She was at 92,543.

He looked from the odometer back to the sticker as he pulled up in front of Billy’s. Stared. Blinked. “That’s it.”

He backed out of the parking spot and tore off. It had stopped sleeting, and the temps ticked up a few degrees, so the wet wasn’t freezing to the road.

When he reached Brody Cash’s place, he ran up the walk, banged on the guy’s door, and didn’t bother with niceties when the door opened. “Mind if I take a look inside your car?”

Cash grabbed the keys from the hall table and just about threw them at him. “Here you go. Won’t find anything from Chuck in there.”

“Not looking for that. Looking for your alibi. How many times have you taken the car out since the oil change on Monday?”

“Let’s see.” Cash squinted as if that’d help him think. “Just the once. When you called me down to the station. Why?”

“Hang on.” Harper turned on his heel and hurried to the vehicle in question.

He opened the door on the driver’s side and ducked his head in, looked at the oil change sticker on the upper left corner of the window. The mechanic wrote the mileage on it, so Cash would know when he’d gone five thousand miles and was due for his next oil change. The sticker said 32,476 miles.

Harper put the key in the ignition and turned on the engine. The odometer showed 32,480 miles. About right. Cash lived roughly two miles from the police station. He hadn’t driven to the victim’s place Monday night. Cash and Lamm lived on opposites sides of town. Cash hadn’t driven since his oil change at all, like he’d said, except to the police station and back.

“You’re cleared in the investigation,” he told Cash as he returned the man’s keys.

Then he left without an explanation. He had no time to waste. Dicky Poole was the killer. Harper was so close to an arrest, he could almost taste it.

He was turning at the end of Cash’s street when his phone rang.

“I couldn’t reach you on your radio,” Leila said. “Everything okay?”

“I’m in Allie’s car.”

Meaningful silence. Then she cleared her throat. “Brittany Wallingford is here. She says she wants to confess.”

“She’s just looking for attention. I’ll deal with her later.”

“She seems genuinely distressed. Gabi tried to talk to her, but she says she’ll only speak with you. I put her in the interview room. She’s crying in there.”

Harper ran through a silent string of curses. “All right. I’ll be right there.”

Dicky was supposed to come to the station anyway. Leila had managed to catch him on the phone and schedule him for 3:00 p.m. He would have no idea Harper was on to him. He would show up, if for nothing else than to figure out where the investigation stood and to throw Harper off the scent. Harper would arrest him then.

Who else was on duty? Mike? No. Joe Kessler. Harper called him. “Do you have some time?”

“What do you need?”

“Surveillance. Could you go over to Dicky Poole’s place? If he goes anywhere before I call you back, just follow him and let me know. Don’t lose him. I think he’s our killer. I’m on my way to the station. I’m going to put in for an arrest warrant for him and for a search warrant for his place.”